A coworker recently asked me if I had any advice for her after her first year at our company. Instead of replying immediately in Slack without any forethought, I asked her if it would be okay to write something up. Well, this here is what I came up with.
¶01. Know Yourself
More of a life goal than a career goal, knowing what your strengths, weaknesses, and skills are is invaluable. I wish I had learned this earlier in my career—hell, in my life—but we learn things when we were meant to learn them. Knowing what you want out of life means that it will guide you in what type of career you want, where you want to live, the types of people in your life, what you do for fun…I mean, it’s endless. In my twenties, which is when I started my professional career as a software programmer, I knew very little. It was a tumultuous time for me (lots of personal stuff going on) and since I didn’t know what I was going for, I tried it all. This isn’t a bad thing. When you don’t know, you have to experience a lot of things you don’t like before you figure out what you do like. That process of learning is where you get to know yourself.
A few resources I have found helpful recently are:
You can find free versions of the tests but I recommend paying for the full versions. You are trying to get to know yourself better and the details you get with the paid versions are so worth the price (not affiliated in any way with the above and I have paid for all three tests). The results are a great starting point to find what excites you, where your strengths and limits are, and perhaps show you something you hadn’t even thought of.
¶02. Advocate for Yourself
When I started working in tech, I was often the only woman in the room. I didn’t always speak up for my ideas, and when I did, they were often derided or dismissed. Whether or not this was because I’m a woman or because I was green, I can’t speak to, but I do remember one owner of a company telling me that he was surprised I did such good work (take that as you will). I was often given a smaller salary starting out then my male counterparts (at one start-up, I was given 25,000 shares less than the man who started a week after me, and another company gave me $2,000 less in salary than a man that had less experience than me).
What I didn’t know then is that I had to advocate for myself. I had to believe in my ideas to fight for them. I had to believe I was worth a bigger salary. I had to advocate for my worth. I had major imposter syndrome when I first started, as I think almost all of us do, and this prevented me from advocating for myself. So, what does this mean on an actionable level, to combat your imposter syndrome? It means to speak up—repeatedly, if necessary—in meetings or in one-on-one conversations. It means to negotiate for a bigger salary (the art of negotiation is not as hard as people think; ask for more money and have the evidence to support the request when you make it). In my experience, women tend to have to offer more evidence than their male counterparts, and we have to answer the question “Why?” more often. It’s less so nowadays, but twenty years ago, when I got my start, it was the norm. Continue to challenge your own dismissive thinking about your abilities, continue to be vocal, continue to advocate.
¶03. Hard Work is not Two Four-Letter Words
There were weeks where I worked seventy, eighty hours. There was one slog of a quarter where I worked close to seventy hours every week for all twelve weeks. It wasn’t pleasant but projects and deadlines were completed and met. And wow, was I burned out afterward. Yet, that hard work is what made it all successful. Working that hard was fun, too! There was a sense of camradery with the other people working just as hard. We celebrated with going out to a restaurant, or getting a little tipsy at the bar, or in taking the day after off. Hard work doesn’t always pay off in the moment (i.e., you may not get a bonus) but the cumulative effect of that hard work means that I have a lot of career capital of shipping high-quality work, and when I say I will do something, it gets done. Which leads to…
¶04. Your Word is Your Bond
Honesty, clarity, and being a woman of your word is like a super power, for two reasons. First, if what you commit to, you complete, it naturally limits what you can say yes to. If there are already a few things on your plate, and your word is your bond, you won’t be able to add another commitment without sacrificing your quality. Second, you don’t need to keep a running list of little white lies in your head, wondering what you told one person, while trying to keep another white lie straight for a different person. Life becomes simple when you do what you say, and you speak truthfully about what you can accomplish, what you have accomplished, and what your ideals are.
¶05. Roll With the Punches (or learn to be resilient)
Careers, no matter how diligent a plan you come up with, will take a detour at some point. Companies will lay people off, start-ups will fail, or aliens will land and everything you’ve been working toward will suddenly end. Careers and life change constantly and those that can adapt quickly end up making the change work for them, rather than debilitate them. Part of being resilient means getting out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle so that you can weather the financial hit, but it also means having things outside of work that are important to you.
¶06. Be Helpful
If you really want to accelerate your career, I think consistently being helpful is key. Think more along the lines of how you can level up your coworkers instead of only leveling up yourself. Ask how you can make your boss’s job easier. Offer suggestions on how to improve meetings or processes. Be the first to volunteer for an assignment. Ask coworkers how they are doing. Ask them about life outside of work. Take out the trash, do the dishes, plan that gathering. There are so many opportunities to lift up your coworkers and lend a hand. Again, it may not pay off in the moment, but you will become known as a kind and generous person that people want to work with. When that starts to happen, when exciting work opportunities come up, you’ll be the first person to be asked because your bosses already know you go above and beyond.
Being helpful isn’t a one-way street. When you need help, ask! People love sharing their knowledge and advice. It also shows a bit of vulnerability, which I think is a good thing. Being vulnerable, letting down your guard, allows others to do the same. Connection comes when we drop below surface conversations, and it often starts with a little vulnerability. Saying to your boss, “I don’t know how to do that. Can you show me?” is good. You don’t know what you don’t know. A good boss will mentor and educate. If a boss belittles you in any way, immediately start looking for another job—they won’t help you grow in your career.
¶07. Be Deliberate
Along with being helpful, you need to make sure your output (reports, code, emails, etc.) is at the highest standard you are capable of. Check and double-check your work. Don’t wait until the last minute to finish a project. Plan out your week, leaving room for the unforeseen (this is especially true in an agency setting). Prepare before meetings: read through the email, research the topic, get context from the people in the meeting beforehand. Don’t waste people’s time. Be consistently on time. But realize when good enough is good enough, because perfection is sometimes out of reach or not worth the extra time. Over the course of your career, you’ll learn to differentiate between the two. Until then, look to your boss to make that call and have him or her explain their reasoning.
¶08. Plan for a Rainy Day
We work to make money. It is usually the primary reason we take a job (I would much rather be a writer of fiction than a writer of code but I didn’t want to be a starving artist). When we start making big girl money, we think about all the things we can now afford. Before you even spend a cent, put money aside for future you. As soon as you can take part of your company’s 401(k) program, start contributing, especially if your employer offers matching (otherwise, you’re leaving free money on the table). At the early stage of your career, it might seem hard to save 10% or 20%. It might even be hard at 5%. But start somewhere. Start with 1% and increase it every month or two until you are maxing out your 401(k). You want to establish the habit of paying yourself first. When you start making more money, start saving even more. Live off what you were making originally until you have a decently sized fuck-off fund. Start getting into index funds. Your money should work for you, not the other way around. You don’t want lack of money to be the reason you stay in a dead-end or caustic job, and if you find a job you really love but the pay is abyssmal for the first year, having savings allows you to take it. Money in the bank opens up your life and opportunities that living paycheck-to-paycheck will never give you.
Some resources:
¶09. Final Thoughts
As with anything on the internet, take from this what you will, and discard the rest. If I had to pick my top three from the above, it would be to know yourself, be helpful, and plan for a rainy day. Though, they are all kind of important, aren’t they?